This weekend I had the privilege of spending a few hours at the 2014 Birmingham Parade of Homes Ideal Home. It is an absolutely stunning home in the Ross Bridge neighborhood of Hoover, and it was built by Murphy Home Builders. The incredible interiors on this home were a joint project between the builder and interior designer Bee Martin Little at Set to Sell Staging. I promised you a full tour last week, so without further ado…

As you enter the home through the foyer, the formal dining room is immediately to your left. Though it is considered the “formal” dining room, the room’s relaxed feel makes it much more comfortable and inviting than a traditional stuffy dining room.

The color of the walls is Sherwin Williams’s Intellectual Grey, and it is accented by a beautiful patterned tone-on-tone wallpaper on one accent wall.

And it is crowned with a lovely tray ceiling and two gorgeous lantern pendants.

Connecting the dining room to the kitchen is a wonderful butler’s pantry.

Though a butler’s pantry is typically a small room, even the smallest details received attention.

The butler’s pantry leads you into the to-die-for kitchen.

Can’t you imagine entertaining family and friends in this gorgeous and well-planned space?

The kitchen adjoins the family room.

And just off the back side of the kitchen and family room is a lovely breakfast room that has windows on three sides. Oh, the beautiful natural light in this cozy space!

This built-in bench provides a ton of seating!

Just out the back door is a lovely outdoor room, complete with lots of seating, a TV, and a fireplace to warm the space on cool nights.

The master bedroom suite is a calm, peaceful retreat. It would be the perfect space to end a long day.

The gorgeous paint color is Sherwin Williams’s Sea Salt.

The artwork in the room ties it all together wonderfully.

And the room is toped off with this beautiful tray ceiling with white-washed pine planks and distressed chandelier.

The bedrooms flows right into the master bath, which is a lovely combination of marble, tile, beautiful fixtures, and bold pattern.

Heading downstairs, there is a man cave with another complete kitchen.

The downstairs area also features a large media room, a small game room, a guest bedroom, and a full bathroom. Upstairs boasts, several bedrooms (I lost count. Maybe four??), an additional kids’ media room, and several more bathrooms. Needless to say, there is plenty of room in this home for family and guests. But the things that make it so special are the details.

Like the wallpaper accent wall in the guest bathroom…

The drink fridge in the kitchen island…

The detail on the interior doors…

The stunning light fixtures…

The octagon tile in the kids’ bath…

And the stamped and stained concrete sidewalk…

Somebody is going to be very happy raising their family in this home!

The Parade of Homes continues next weekend, April 12 and 13, from 10:00-6:00 on Saturday and 1:00-6:00 on Sunday. There are 77 homes on the Parade this year, so get out and see as many of them as you can.

You guys know how much I love to look through Pinterest and design blogs to get ideas for beautiful home decorating. You know what I love even better than that? Seeing beautiful homes in person! This weekend is the first of two weekends for the Birmingham Home Builders’ Parade of Homes. If you love touring gorgeous homes as much as I do, join me Saturday from 10:00 til 1:00 at the Birmingham Ideal Home located in Ross Bridge. I’ll be there with the B-Metro blogging team, along with Beth at Unskinny Boppy. I had the opportunity to tour this gorgeous home built by Murphy Homes at the kick-off party on Thursday night, and y’all, it is absolutely FABULOUS!

Here are a few sneak peeks of the house:

I’ll be back next week with a full tour of the home, but in the meantime come on out to the Parade and see it yourself! The Parade is this weekend, April 4-5 and next weekend, April 11-12. The homes are open to the public on Saturday from 10:00-6:00 and Sunday from 1:00-6:00. This is a FREE event, and you are welcome to bring cameras and take lots of pictures. If you can’t make it to the Ideal Home in Ross Bridge, there are 76 other homes on the Parade, and they are all worth seeing.

To follow along with our social media coverage tomorrow, be sure to “like” The Hill Hangout on Facebook and follow The Hill Hangout on Twitter. Also, you can follow the Greater Birmingham Parade of Homes on their Facebook page and on Twitter. While on Twitter and Instagram, be sure to check out the #BhamParade hashtag to see lots of photos.

All photos courtesy of Murphy Homes.

Happy first day of spring! I don’t know about you, but I am so happy to see winter come to an end. Don’t get me wrong, winter has it’s place. It’s absolutely necessary for the earth and for our souls to go through a season of cold, wet, darkness for the old to die away and make room for the new growth of spring. But by the time that season of lifelessness is over, I’m jumping out of my skin to see the “new thing” God is doing.

I have a million and one projects to do around the house, and right now they are all swirling around in my head. I’m standing at the brink of being overwhelmed by how much I’d like to get done. It’s at these times that I know I need to pull out a notebook and get it all in a list. Somehow getting the ideas out of my head and onto paper make them seem less urgent and more manageable. I can rest easy that I’ve given them a place of permanence before they fly away and I’m left scratching my head wondering where my inspiration went.

First on my list will be to neaten up my painting space and get a few pieces of furniture ready to sell. My workshop area was left in an unfinished state when freezing temp hit, making it unbearable to use. I have several pieces that are half finished. I want to move them on to completion so I can make room for new pieces.

Also on my list is to finish power washing the driveway. We started that project last year, and somehow in the middle we lost steam. I love the look of a fresh, clean driveway and sidewalk. It makes the entire look neater and more trim.

I’ve been planning to paint my master bedroom and our den for months, maybe years. Somehow we haven’t found the time or energy to begin, but I am redoubling my effort to knock out this project. Once we get started, I know we won’t want to stop until we’re finished. I’m sure it will look so much better we’ll wonder why we couldn’t get motivated to do it sooner. I’m trusting in that, anyway.

As I look around my house I see that some of my accessories need freshening up. A few are becoming dated, so I’m scouring Pinterest to see how I can update a few areas without spending a ton of money.

What about you? Does spring bring about the urge to work on projects around your home? What kinds of things do you look forward to completing?

I wrote this post several years ago as a guest post for another blog. In it, I give a step-by-step tutorial in using PicMonkey to edit photos. The original audience was other bloggers, but since we live in a social media culture, I believe that this info can be useful for anyone who wants to post photos with text.

As a Christian blogger, I daily look for new ways to get my message out to my readers. Anything I can do to draw in a reader or get them to listen to my message is something I want to utilize as much as possible. One of the questions I am most often asked by my mommy blogger friends is how to add text to photos in order to capture the readers’ attention. Today I’m going to let you in on a little secret: It’s really not that hard. I use a free online site called PicMonkey.com that makes it easy peasy. But before we get to the how-to of adding text, let’s first answer the why.

Adding text can make a photo more descriptive. As you know, I write a lot of recipe posts. Because a stand-alone image doesn’t always convey what the dish is or what it contains, I often add text to give readers more information about the dish. Maybe you don’t write about food as much as I do, but text can be added to any kind of image in order to achieve the same results.

Adding text makes a photo more likely to be shared on social media. If you are trying to reach as many people as possible with the message of your post, using social media to promote your posts can yield big results. Pinterest has been my top referral site for several years, but Facebook, Twitter, and now Google Plus are not far behind. Because social media is so full of images, we tend to glance over items that don’t have an eye-catching component. Text can be used to bring the reader’s eye to your image, thereby giving you an opportunity to engage them with your writing. In a word, if you have a pinnable, tweetable, shareable image, your post will receive more views than one that doesn’t intrigue readers.

Using text to watermark your images: You work hard to write original content and take captivating photos to enhance your writing. Unfortunately in today’s social media environment, there are some less than honest people who actually go to great lengths to steal photos and content. While that’s certainly frustrating enough to be plagiarized, there are readers who steal content and photos with more devious intentions. One of the most agonizing I’ve experienced recently was a social media acquaintance who had a picture of her son stolen and circulated as one of the victims in the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting. The person who lifted her son’s photo was “trying to raise money for funeral expenses.” Needless to say, it was a huge scam, but it took her several days to clear up the mess. By that time a lot of damage had been done. Watermarking your photos adds a level of security to your images. While watermarking might not stop a very determined image thief, it will discourage most people from lifting your pictures.

Now that you are sufficiently convinced that text can enhance the effectiveness of your photos, let’s dig in. Again, PicMonkey is my go-to site for photo editing. There are other options available, but this is the one that I believe offers the most options on their free version. PicMonkey.com does offer a paid version with more options, including additional fonts, but I have chosen to stick with the free option and have been able to do everything I’ve wanted to do.

When you go to PicMonkey.com, the first step is to upload the image you want to edit.

The next step is to crop the photo if needed.

Once your photo is cropped you are ready to add text. Sometimes I add text directly to the photo, but if the photo is busy and the text might get lost on the image, I will usually add a banner background on which to place the text.

Once the overlay is in place, you can adjust the color or transparency of the banner.

Once your background for the text is in place, you are ready to add the text. PicMonkey.com has lots of fonts to choose from, but only allows one font type per text box If you want to add several fonts, you must do it with separate text boxes. Just like with overlays, the color and placement of the text is changeable. Within the free version, you can choose any font without the little crown icon next to it. The fonts with the crown icon are part of the Royale edition, which is the paid version.

Once you have added all of the text you desire, you are ready to save the image to your computer. Saving your image is a simple step.

I find that PicMonkey.com is user-friendly and allows me to edit photos in most any way I need to. It has been an invaluable tool in creating professional looking images to enhance my blog posts. I hope you’ll find these steps useful in adding your own text to photos. If you’re interested in trying out PicMonkey, click the picture… (affiliate link)

At The Hill Hangout, we talk a lot about how to update furniture with paint. It’s kind of our schtick. But not every piece of furniture needs to be painted. I come across pieces all the time that just need a good cleaning and polishing to be brought back to life. Often times, people overlook these pieces because they can’t see past the dust and grime, but with a little help, these pieces often have beauty just below the surface. In fact, I bet you have some pieces of furniture around your house right now that have lost their luster to you. You might have even considered replacing them with something newer or more trendy. But I bet that if you spent a little elbow grease on them, you’d fall in love all over again. When I find these pieces of furniture, Restor-A-Finish is my go-to to bring back the lost beauty.

My mom introduced me to Restore-A-Finish, which she has been using for years to keep her wood pieces looking their best. She had given me an old dining room table and chairs years ago that began to show their age. We applied a coat of Restore-A-Finish, and the beautiful color of the natural grain reappeared. I freshen up the top of the table every few months with Restore-A-Finish, and it keeps my table in great shape.

The other day I came across a gorgeous set of six antique chairs at the thrift store. They were dusty and grimy, with terribly dated and dirty fabric on the seat cushions. But they were solidly built, had a great classic style, and I could envision that they only needed a little Restore-A-Finish to bring out their beauty.

The right side of this photo shows the “before” condition of the chairs. They were in pretty rough shape. The left side shows the “after.” With only a little Restore-A-Finish rubbed into the wood, the natural grain of the wood showed through. I was quite happy with how these chairs looked when I was finished with them.

I realize this probably sounds like a sponsored post that Restore-A-Finish paid me to write, but it is not. I really just love this product because it has saved me from getting rid of “worn out” pieces of furniture. It is available at Home Depot and Lowe’s or by following the Amazon affiliate link above.

Do you have a piece of furniture you think can be revived with Restore-A-Finish? I’d love to hear about it.

We all want our homes to be comfortable, beautiful, and places we are proud of. It’s part of our Proverbs 31 deal, right? However, furnishing a home can come at a hefty price. Let’s face it: furniture isn’t cheap. And long gone are the days when a good piece of furniture would last the lifetime of a family. In today’s economy, families are switching out furniture pieces to stay atop the going trends.

Out of necessity, I have become a bargain hunter on the furniture front. I simply don’t have the excess room in my budget to spend a ton on furniture. It’s a good thing my mom has been shopping this way for years and has shown me a few tips and tricks along the way. I’m happy to pass some of my sources and ideas to you in hopes that you can also furnish your rooms in a way you love without going into debt or creating financial stress. Our homes CAN be beautiful without breaking the bank. It only takes a little creativity and an whole lot of elbow grease. Let’s get started…

Choose upholstered pieces carefully. Upholstered pieces like sofas and chairs can be among the most expensive pieces of furniture you’ll buy. Because of this, we should choose upholstered pieces that are a classic style and have a neutral fabric. Be sure that you really, really like the piece and will continue to like it for many years. If you choose a classic, timeless style of furniture, then you can pair them with less expensive trendier pieces to achieve the latest look. Neutral colored fabrics allow you to use throw pillows and blankets, which are relatively much less expensive, to bring in the season’s latest colors and patterns. From a bargain hunting perspective, should you ever pay more for upholstered pieces that are classic and neutral? Absolutely! Spending a little more up front to get pieces you won’t get tired of and that will last a long time will save you big bucks over having to replace these big ticket items. Sometimes spending more to get a timeless piece means saving money in the long run. (That said, Ikea is a fantastic resource for less expensive classic pieces. And they have a full line of slip covers for most of their pieces so that you can change a look without having to replace the piece.) You don’t, however, have to limit yourself to furniture stores only. Check online sites like Craigslist and Facebook trading sites. I have found some really good bargains on upholstered pieces on my local Facebook site. Just be sure that you ask up front about stains and smells like smoke or pet odors if those turn you off.

Layer in side tables, coffee tables, side chairs, and book cases in colors and materials that compliment your upholstery and rugs. Believe it or not, this is where I save the bulk of my decorating money. Thrift stores, garage sales, Craigslist, and Facebook trading sites are my go-to places for tables, chests, and book cases. With a little imagination, you can find a diamond in the rough. Look for pieces that are structurally sound or can be easily fixed. Sometimes a simple tightening of a screw can fix a wobbly leg or loose drawer, but screws that have pulled all the way through a piece are much harder to fix. Check pieces out well to be sure what you’re getting into. Try to look beyond the piece’s current appearance. Can you paint it to cover stains and add character? Would it look better with a hardware change? I have MANY pieces in my house that I have purchased at thrift stores for $10-$20 and freshened up with a little paint and/or distressing and/or glazing. Search Pinterest for inspiration ideas. Again, Ikea is your friend. A quick Pinterest search of “Ikea hacks” can show how a very basic, inexpensive piece of furniture can be transformed into a one-of-a-kind masterpiece.

Choose artwork that you love and that is meaningful to you. Once you have your large pieces layered into the room, you are ready to finish it out with artwork on the walls. While artwork isn’t technically considered furniture, I wanted to include a few tips here so that you can stretch those dollars as well. First of all, only spend money on artwork you LOVE. If you only like it a little bit in the store, you will only like it less and less over time, which means spending money to replace it. I’m a big fan of original artwork, which can get very expensive, so I try to use freebies or nearly freebies where I can to free up money I can spend on more expensive pieces. I have a gallery wall of black and white family photos in frames I bought from Target. It is a high-impact wall that I spent very little money on. And since I love the people in the photos dearly, I love the effect the photos have in my room. On an opposing wall, I have framed several paintings by my children. I give them paint in the colors I need and let them create a beautiful piece for me. Purchase an inexpensive frame, and you’re done. Again, it is art that I love and will keep for the long haul. Be creative in large wall spaces that require a large piece of art. I have a huge space over the TV in our den where I hung a 3 foot barn star. It cost me about $15 from Garden Ridge, and it suits the space perfectly. When it comes to artwork, think outside the box. Visit your local architectural salvage store for an interesting and unexpected piece to hang on the wall. Hang an old musical instrument you aren’t using anymore. Buy a scarf in colors you love and frame it. Print out artwork you love from the internet. Just be sure it isn’t a copywrited work that you need to pay royalties on. Frame illustrations from your favorite children’s books. If you are crafty or artistic, look around on Etsy for inspirational ideas, and paint them yourself. Frame old family heirlooms like Grandpa’s pipe, Great Grandma’s handkerchief, or baby’s Christening gown. Saving money by using a few of these tips will allow you to spend more money when you find the perfect painting you’ve been looking for.

What are some bargains you’ve come across that were perfect in your home?